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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Why I am not a Catholic, Part 4 (final part, and why it matters)

My youngest daughter, Michal, knows the rule: no dating before the age of 16. However, unlike her older siblings, her romantic heart could not bear to wait so long to fall in love. So, when she was 14, a young man became her “favorite” fellow student. Of course, there was no dating, but the two of them seemed to find events where both attended, and each spoke to each other electronically whenever possible. It became inevitable that this young man would be her first official suitor. But they would both need wait to turn 16, and then he would have to go through the “interview with her father” step. Then, approval could be granted.

He was a nice young man, polite, kind, and a fellow student at her little Christian high school. He was also a Catholic from a devout Catholic family. As the non-dating stage of their relationship went on, it became apparent that he was “really” a Catholic, even though he attended a non-Catholic Christian school. My daughter assured me that his faith was genuine and that their religious difference would mean little. I told her I did not question his relationship with Jesus, but I suggested she was underestimating the differences in the faiths. I pointed out that if marriage were to ever come into the picture (and that is the ultimate purpose for dating, isn’t it? To find a candidate for marriage?), that there would be real problems. She, like him, was so lost in love that she knew that all obstacles could be overcome, including this. Read more

By definition no Roman Catholic who truly believes what that church teaches "knows Jesus". Why not? Because the Jesus of the Roman Catholic Church died for all men, not just the elect. That would mean that the Jesus of the Arminians, Anglo-Catholics, and Roman Catholics actually saves no one in particular. He only makes salvation a possibility and it is quite possible that everyone will decide not to allow Jesus to save them.

Secondly, Roman Catholicism is an idolatrous and sacerdotal religion of works righteousness. The many problems of sacerdotalism are not the main problem, however.

Erasmus struck at the heart of the Scriptural issue: Free will. If there is free will then God is not God. Basically the Bible teaches that God is sovereign over angels and men and even the fall. This, Luther saw, proved that God does not merely permit reprobation but actively decrees it. This is also why modern Lutherans are not really Lutheran after all. In fact, Lutherans today have more in common with Arminians and Papists than with Luther, who obviously did believe in double predestination and that Adam even before the fall had no free will in the sense of libertarian free will.